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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28139313">Shade: Author's Commentary</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epzilon/pseuds/Epzilon'>Epzilon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Author Commentary, Shade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:28:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>842</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28139313</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epzilon/pseuds/Epzilon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hello! Kellen here! Shade is a project very near and dear to me, and a lot of things go on behind the scenes. I felt that as a way to help bridge the gap between chapters and to give some insight into my writing process and thoughts, I could do some Author’s Commentary on the chapters! Each chapter of this will correlate to a chapter in the story. This commentary will, of course, contain spoilers for the story, so go give it a read!</p>
<p>	I won’t be revealing any information in these commentaries that relates to the plot or the character arcs, so don’t worry about scrolling through each of these for hints as to where I’m taking the story next. I don’t even know where I’m taking it next! Without further ado, let’s begin.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shade: Author's Commentary</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26775406">Shade</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epzilon/pseuds/Epzilon">Epzilon</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Hello! Kellen here! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Shade </span>
  </em>
  <span>is a project very near and dear to me, and a lot of things go on behind the scenes. I felt that as a way to help bridge the gap between chapters and to give some insight into my writing process and thoughts, I could do some Author’s Commentary on the chapters! Each chapter of this will correlate to a chapter in the story, found </span>
  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26775406/chapters/65316688">
    <span>here</span>
  </a>
  <span>. This commentary will, of course, contain spoilers for the story, so go give it a read!</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I won’t be revealing any information in these commentaries that relates to the plot or the character arcs, so don’t worry about scrolling through each of these for hints as to where I’m taking the story next. I don’t even know where I’m taking it next! Without further ado, let’s begin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The story starts by introducing our main protagonist and narrator, Aaron Aikos, a member of ANGEL. When I was younger, I would play on Minecraft creative plot servers and do RPs (roleplays). Many of my characters got their starts from those RPs as either fan characters or wholly original ones. Aaron was originally a fan character I made after reading the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Percy Jackson and the Olympians </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Heroes of Olympus</span>
  </em>
  <span> books. Mostly, his design and personality have remained unchanged.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Back when I first made him, he was a demigod son of Hebe, goddess of youth, and he worked as an angel running missions for the gods of Olympus. He still had his signature white-with-gold-swirls hoodie and his short black hair back then. One major design difference, though, was that he used to fight using a dagger instead of a shield. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>During the writing process, I had to change several aspects of him to fit my original world and distance him from his origins as a PJO fan-character.  I kept the angel motif (it was too central to his design), but I changed it to a pseudo-government agency. I still wanted to pay homage to his origins as a Greek demigod, though, so I decided to use the Greek word for angelic when creating his last name. “Angelikós” was shortened to “Aikos” to make it a bit less on the nose, something I hadn’t thought to do when renaming other characters.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> I decided not to give him any special powers for several reasons. One was that I wanted Tokens to feel rare and mystical, and I felt that enough characters already had them. Another was that Aaron’s powers back in his days as a Minecraft RP character were kind of loose and unpractical. The biggest, though, was that I wanted a protagonist who wasn’t a “chosen one”. Aaron could be replaced with anyone, and that’s what I think makes him special.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This current version of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Shade</span>
  </em>
  <span> story isn’t the first. As a project for my seventh grade English class, we had to write a story. That was the first version of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Shade</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Unfortunately (or fortunately in my opinion) it has been lost to time. The original copy was much less extensive, only having 17 pages. Several parts that are in the current version weren’t in the original. One of the biggest changes was the absence of the prison: the story just started with Aaron already assigned to the case.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Speaking of the prison, Prism was another thing inspired by my days on Minecraft. I made an insane asylum, then called Rainbow Asylum, and that is what I based my description for Prism on. It was also where Zack (who I will get into later, trust me) was developed the most.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Anyway, the story continues and we see Aaron meeting up with another guard. They talk about Tokens and Blockers, setting up false information for the audience. I’ll be honest, a lot of the “lore” in the first few chapters are later revealed to be false or incomplete because I either hadn’t had them fully fleshed out before I started writing or because I realized I wrote something I no longer thought worked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Aaron follows the guard around the complex before asking to see Zack Oscoinne. The guard hesitates for a bit before bringing him to the hidden entrance. After giving some exposition on ANGEL, which I don’t have much to say about, they move into the tunnel and the chapter ends.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I’m not really sure how to end this, so I’m just going to give some acknowledgments to those who have helped me and are still helping me with this story. First and foremost, I want to thank my beta readers, Icarus, Alex, and Jade. Without them, I wouldn’t feel confident enough in my abilities as a writer to put this anywhere on the internet. So to them, I say thank you. You can follow Ic and Alex on their Twitters (<a href="https://twitter.com/LORENZHELLMAN_">@LORENZHELLMAN_</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/hmm_cyber">@hmm_cyber</a> respectively), and you can follow Jade on her AO3 account where she writes about My Hero Academia (<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/catdragon13873">catdragon13789</a>). Jade is an amazing writer, Ic has some amazing art, and all three of them are very funny and deserve a follow/subscribe!</span>
</p>
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